


loneliness is a homecoming

by TolkienGirl



Series: All That Glitters: Gold Rush!AU [93]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Bonding, Dysfunctional Family, Father-Son Relationship, Feanor being a bit of...well you know, Fingolfin remains the best of all dads, Flashbacks, Gen, Memories Good & Bad, Post-Christmas at Formenos, which was a very pivotal event to which I shall return
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-01 19:58:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19184581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: Those are not easy words to say.





	loneliness is a homecoming

It is unbecoming for a man of nearly forty to be driven to displays of childish outrage. It would be unbecoming for a man half his age.

Fingolfin reminds himself of this for the third time in half an hour.

It ought to be a glad day. The sun shines bright for January, and Fingon is having his first dinner home. Fingon also seems intent on gesturing ecstatically with his fish-knife and proclaiming, in as cheerful and clear a tone as Fingolfin has heard in months, how Maedhros is the dearest cousin and Nerdanel the kindest aunt and Feanor the most impressive--

The legs of a chair (Fingolfin's, and he is already ashamed) shriek against the floorboards as he rises.

"Husband?" Anaire asks faintly. "Are you well?"

Fingon's jaw and fish-knife both hang suspended. His accolade of Feanor remains unspoken.

"A slight headache," Fingolfin says, gruff. "Pray excuse me."

His father bade him send Fingon north for Christmas. His father did not promise that all would be mended, but he did seem to consider it likely to be the best balm--

 _And your son is happy,_ Fingolfin reminds himself, staring at his flushed face in the vanity glass. _What more can you want than that?_

 

_"What do you want?" Feanor snaps, opening the door of his room not more than an inch. Fingolfin had a grand speech and he may still have it now, but for the fact that it is trapped in his throat like a caged bird._

_"To--to--"_

_"Stuttering like an idiot." Feanor opens the door wider, not for kindness' sake. "You know they'll put you away for that. Father will send you to an asylum, and we'll be rid of you."_

_The door slams shut._

_Is slammed shut. By his half-brother._

_Fingolfin feels as if he is less than half. And is that what he wants?_

_A gentle cat, to keep his knees warm as he studies. The certainty that he will someday be as tall as his father (_ their _father). A racing sled._

_Feanor's love._

 

He washes his face and descends the stairs. Turgon and Argon are sprawled on the braided rug with a checkerboard between them. Aredhel is practicing her scales on the piano, and Fingon is staring at a book, not really reading.

 _All the light gone out of him_ , Fingolfin thinks, but only after he has thought how much the boy looks like a younger self.

Anaire's needlework is heaped and unfinished in her lap. Her eyes say _go to him_ , and Fingolfin does not resent the message, even though this was already his design.

"Fingon." He takes the chair adjacent to his eldest son's.

(Feanor's children always cling to him. They hang from his strong smith's arms, they press kisses to his cheeks. And Feanor wears that love like he does all gifts--sharply.)

(This is also how Feanor wears his hate.)

"Yes, Father?"

"I owe you an apology." Those are not easy words to say. Fingon-- _had_ been troublesome, before Christmas, and if not quite a punishment--"I owe you an apology," Fingolfin repeats, because he is not a coward.

Fingon blinks. He was so quiet for the first two years of his life that Fingolfin worried (despite Mother's promises and Anaire's prayers) that he might never speak at all.

 

_"Finarfin was like that," Feanor says, with the same dismissive haste that he favors whenever he speaks to Fingolfin. And yet--yet this is almost as if Feanor thinks he is continuing a conversation already had._

_"Beg pardon," Fingolfin says cautiously, lifting his demitasse. "Like what?"_

_"Barely talked." Feanor smiles thinly. "Until he was nearly three years old."_

_"I..."_

_"Don't remember? I daresay you don't, you were very young." Dismissive again. It doesn't sting like usual, though; Fingolfin rather feels a pinch of aching anticipation in his chest instead._

_"I suppose I was."_

_"I shouldn't worry about Fingon, if I were you." Feanor lifts his hat and gloves from where he has deposited them on the pembroke table near the door of Father's drawing room. "Good day."_

 

"I interrupted the telling of your adventures in Formenos at dinner," Fingolfin says quietly. Not softly; he cannot be soft. "My headache is recovered. Pray finish what you had to say."

Fingon's fingers flit over the open page, and his eyelashes flutter as if to shield a hesitant gaze. "Are you--are you sure, sir?"

(Do Feanor's sons call him _sir_?)

"Fingon, I am very sure." He almost adds _you were missed at Christmas_ , but too much tenderness would only make the boy uncomfortable.

"Well then," Fingon says eagerly, his cheeks pinking with pleasure, "We sledded nearly every day, and raced, and I wasn't the fastest but Maitimo and I won, once. He could win _every_ time, if he wanted, but because he is the eldest, he lets the little ones go. Go first, I mean. So that they can have the fun of getting to the bottom of the hill and then tumbling out of the way--"

"You call him Maitimo?" That is Nerdanel's name for her red-haired eldest.

Fingon nods. "He said I might. You--you don't mind, Father?"

"We may always use the names others prefer."

 

 _Do not speak of me as your_ brother _, when you know full well that is not what you are--_

 

"Maitimo is so strong, he can lift Amrod _and_ Amras together in his arms. I couldn't. And Celegorm _said_ he could, but then they wriggled and all of them fell over, into the snow!"

"Was there a great deal," Fingolfin inquires, conscious of Anaire's smile, "Of snow?"

Fingon bites his smiling lips, lost in some memory even as he answers. "It was so beautiful. Do you think we ever might--might live in the country? I mean, I know Uncle Feanor says--"

Fingolfin swallows under his collar. He does his best to keep his voice the same. "What does Uncle Feanor say?"

The fluttering lashes again. When did he teach his own son to be afraid? Fingon when angry is afraid of exactly no one--but he can be a little timid in his happiness. It flares and ebbs. Fingon is not his father, he has no reason to be--

"Only that you--that we prefer the city."

 

_How considerate you are, the second son. No one could believe you to be as selfish as an heir._

_I am not his heir._

_No, you are not._  I  _am._

 

"The city keeps us close to Grandfather and Grandmother, and allows me to conduct my business." The explanation may darken Fingon's expression; of late Fingon has taken a bleak view of all _capitalism_. Where he learned the word, Fingolfin knows not; it seems galling to chalk it up to the excellence of his schooling.

 _What of the poor?_ Fingon likes to ask, very outraged for thirteen.

But he doesn't look outraged now.

"I did miss us," Fingon whispers. His smile is a lonely thing, tugging at one corner of his mouth. Fingolfin feels it pinching in his chest.

"You did?"

The smile grows. "Every day and every night. But I was very happy."

The two may be true, Fingolfin supposes. _Should_ be true, if at all possible.

"I am glad," he says. Maybe loneliness only belongs to him after all--that would be best.

(What more can he want, than that?)


End file.
